


Visits

by rosehips



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: (fluff and kidfic?!! who have I become??), (more like kid cameos), (well only kind of a kidfic), 5+1 Things, F/M, Fluff, Kidfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 14:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13366662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosehips/pseuds/rosehips
Summary: Five times Rafael goes to Olivia's apartment, and one time he doesn't.





	Visits

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Cam for being my beta!! <3

_i._

It takes Olivia almost a minute to answer the door, and Rafael is just digging his phone out to check whether she texted to cancel their meeting when it swings open. Like him, she’s still in her work clothes; unlike him, she looks a bit frazzled.

“Thanks again for agreeing to do prep here, Barba,” she says with a rueful smile. “I just -- Noah’s been sick, and --”

“-- You don’t want to be away from him for too long. I understand, Liv.” He gives a quick smile in return as he steps in, and she relaxes, closing the door behind him.

“We can work here,” she tells him, gesturing to the couch and coffee table. A few of Noah’s toys have been pushed to the side of the table, but the rest are nowhere to be seen and he assumes they’re in the boy’s toybox.

Rafael sets his briefcase on the cleared end of the table and begins to sort out the files. “I think this is the cleanest I’ve ever seen your living room,” he comments with a smirk.

Olivia sighs. “This cold is making him so tired he’s been sleeping nine hours a night, plus naps. I’ve had plenty of time to clean, for once.”

“I hope you’re getting some rest yourself,” he remarks, taking a seat on the couch. “Can’t have you catching that cold and spreading it around the precinct.”

She rolls her eyes as she sits down across the couch from him. “Your concern is touching.” Her voice is sarcastic, but he catches a small smirk cross her face too. “Should we get started?”

They go over the case files together, speaking quietly to make sure her son doesn’t overhear words like “rape,” “sexual assault,” or “molestation,” let alone the gory details. It takes them a while to work through it all, Rafael thinking out loud to form legal arguments with Olivia providing input and insights from the investigative side.

By the time they’re done, it’s almost midnight.

“Would you like to stay for a drink?” Olivia asks as she helps him pack up his files.

Rafael hesitates. He’d like to say yes, but her offer was so offhand as to be absent-minded, and she looks exhausted.

“I think I’d better head home,” he says gently, and he thinks she looks a little relieved at this response. He’s glad he read her tone right but can’t help but feel disappointed.

The feeling fades when she walks him to the doorway and pats him on the shoulder after he pulls on his suit jacket. “Goodnight,” she smiles.

Again, he smiles back. “Goodnight.”

 

_ii._

It becomes somewhat of a habit, the two of them working at her apartment on late nights or weekends when they have a lot of casework to do but are sick of their respective offices.

Tonight is one such night, and it’s a difficult case. Unreliable witness testimony, shaky physical evidence, and a victim who can’t speak for herself because she’s in a coma. In the victim’s absence, Olivia’s testimony is key. She wishes it weren’t.

“Okay, let’s run through that one more time,” Rafael sighs when she finishes her statement.

“We’ve been over this a dozen times,” she snaps. “I know what to say on the stand; you don’t have to coach me.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Olivia, the DA is breathing down my neck after that suspension. I need this airtight.”

It finally registers how exhausted he looks, how worried: the lines across his brow are deep with stress, and his shoulders are visibly tense. She wants to reach over and touch them, get him to relax -- instead she opens her mouth to reassure him that he’s going to win this one, that of _course_ he’s going to win this one, because he’s the best at what he does, and it’s going to be alright.

Before she can get the words out, Rafael’s gaze shifts behind her. She turns to follow his vision.

“Mommy?”

Noah is standing in the entrance to the hallway, holding his blanket and Eddie the Elephant. Unlike Rafael, he doesn’t look tired at all.

“Hey, sweet boy,” Olivia says, standing to go to him. “What are you doing awake?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Noah complains, and he doesn’t protest when she scoops him up into her arms, Eddie and all. “Hi, Mister Rafael,” he says over her shoulder.

“Hey, Noah,” Rafael responds, and although Olivia is still facing the hall she can hear the smile in his voice.

She turns towards him again. _Sorry,_ she mouths, petting Noah’s hair. Rafael shakes his head; _no problem._

“Are you feeling sick again?” she asks, pulling her son away from her shoulder a bit so she can study his face.

“No, ‘m just not tired,” he replies, but already he’s starting to sound like he is.

“Alright,” she says quietly, pulling him close again. “Why don’t we lay you down and you can just rest your eyes until you’re sleepy again? I have to do some work with Rafael, but Eddie can keep you company, does that sound okay?”

“Okay,” yawns Noah.

“Be right back,” Olivia whispers to Rafael, and he nods.

By the time she gets back, he’s packed away all his files.

“Hey, sorry about that,” she says quietly.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Rafael says absently as he closes his briefcase. “He just needed his mom.”

Olivia smiles at this, but she’s not done. “No, not for that -- for earlier.”

He looks up, eyes questioning.

“I know the DA has his eye on you. We can do another round of prep for my cross.”

“No, you were right,” he says, shaking his head. “You’ll do fine on the stand, like always. We don’t need to go over it all again.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Olivia laughs. “Stay for a drink instead?”

He doesn’t even glance at his watch before answering. “Sure.”

She pads over to the kitchen and pulls out the scotch and heavy-bottomed glasses she keeps for evenings like this.

“Ice or no?” she asks.

“No, thanks,” he answers, and his voice is closer than she expected. Looking up, she sees he’s come over to lean against the other side of the counter.

Olivia pours two fingers’ worth and slides it over to him, then pours the same for herself.

He cocks an eyebrow as he takes a sip. “No red wine for you tonight?”

“I’m all out,” she shrugs, “and I don’t think you want to drink alone.”

“Who does?” he quips. He sets down the glass and rests his elbows on the counter; without thinking, she mirrors his posture so they’re leaning towards each other across it.

“Anyway,” she says, “about the trial --”

“We really don’t need to talk about it --”

“You’re going to do fine. You’re going to get a conviction.”

Rafael offers up a rueful smile. “I hope so.”

She puts down her glass, reaches over, and takes his hand. His eyes flick down to where their fingers are laced together, then up to her face, then down and back again. She can’t quite read the expression in his eyes, but she can tell they’ve gone almost imperceptibly wider.

“You will,” she tells him, and squeezes his hand. He squeezes hers back just before she lets go.

 

_iii._

It’s a Saturday night, Noah’s at a sleepover, and Rafael is bringing takeout and a movie to Olivia’s apartment.

When he’d asked her what she’d be in the mood to watch she’d been supremely unhelpful -- “I don’t care, as long as it’s not Alvin and the fucking Chipmunks because I’ve had to watch that three times in the past five days” -- so he’s gone with his favorites: _Rear Window_ , and Chinese food.

It feels like a date.

Rafael’s not going to say anything about it, or do anything about it, or even think too much about it, but there’s no use denying that dinner, a movie, and drinks alone with Olivia Benson on a Saturday night sounds like a date, even if it is just at her apartment.

His heart skips a beat when she opens the door in yoga pants and an NYPD sweatshirt.

“Oh, you didn’t have to dress up for me,” he teases, handing her the bag of food when she gestures to take it.

He’s actually glad that she didn’t feel the need to, that she feels so at ease with him. Sometimes he thinks of the days when he barely knew her -- only knew the tough, straightforward, but compassionate Detective Benson, who wore dress clothes and a badge and a gun, and who he never expected to get to see so relaxed. Sometimes he thinks about the difference between then and now, and even though it was slow, even though it took years, it almost dizzies him how far they’ve come. How lucky he is.

“You dress fancy enough for the both of us,” Liv replies (though he’s only in a polo and slacks), bringing him back to the present. “This smells good. What movie did you bring?”

“It’s a comedy _and_ a murder mystery,” he answers, holding up the DVD case. “I think you’ll like it.”

She does, but gets a craving for popcorn partway through, and he pauses the movie so she can make some. When she sits down again, she takes a spot much closer to him. This makes it easier to share the bowl, but the popcorn has nothing to do with how his arm starts off resting across the back of the couch and ends up around her shoulders, or how by the end of the movie she’s leaned right into his side.

“Mm, that was good,” Olivia says as the credits begin to roll on Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. “I liked the amateur detective work.”

“The scene where she breaks into the murderer’s apartment reminds me of you,” he says, smirking when she leans back to eye him.

“Except _I_ wouldn’t have gotten caught,” she argues. “And if I had --”

“You’d know how to handle him, I know,” he says, raising his free hand in surrender.

“Hmm,” is all she says before standing up to clear away their empty glasses and the empty popcorn bowl.

Rafael watches her walk to the kitchen. He looks away when she bends to put the bowl in the dishwasher, and when he glances back she returns his gaze.

“More scotch?” she asks, raising his empty glass.

He pauses to evaluate his level of tipsiness. “Just water, thanks.”

Olivia pours them each a glass before returning to join him on the couch. This time she sits further away, giving herself room to tuck her feet under herself. She rests her elbow on the back of the couch and props up her head, still looking at him. Her eyes are dark and shining.

“Noah was upset when he found out you’d be coming over while he was gone,” she smiles. “He wanted playtime with his Uncle Rafa.”

Rafael smiles around the rim of his glass. “Next time, maybe.”

“You’ve gotten to be good with him,” she continues thoughtfully. “I remember when you used to hold him like he was a bomb about to go off.”

“Well, he was a baby,” Rafael says dryly, “so I wasn’t entirely wrong.”

She laughs.

“Older kids make more sense to me, anyway,” he explains. “They have personalities, they can use their words. You can actually have conversations with them.”

“Hmm. I’ll remind you of that when he’s a teenager and driving us crazy,” she remarks, and the easy assumptions she makes -- that Rafael will be just as close to both of them then, that he has a place with this family, that there’s an “ _us_ ” -- the way she said it like a mother might say to a father -- it fills his heart so suddenly he has to clear his throat.

“He’ll never go too wild,” Rafael says after a moment, and he’s relieved when the words come out steady. “He has a good mom. Right ZIP code, right people.”

They both know perfectly well that those factors don’t guarantee a well-adjusted teen or a healthy adult. They’ve seen plenty of cruel, violent people who started off as beloved children of privilege; on the other hand, they themselves are living proof that lacking two loving parents and a good neighborhood doesn’t doom a person to a short, brutish life.

Still, the words are comforting.

“How’s your mom, by the way?” Liv asks.

He smirks. “Talk about someone who can handle a wayward teen. She’s doing well, charter school’s doing well. She still likes to tell me I work too hard and refuses to hear it when I say that she does too.”

“You’re very alike, aren’t you.”

Rafael raises an eyebrow. “In some ways.” He finishes his water and sets it down on the coffee table, and as he does he catches sight of the time on his watch: almost one in the morning.

He frowns. “I should probably head home.” He thinks he catches a look of disappointment flash across her face. But then again, he’s slightly drunk, and that’s what he wants to see. Which is precisely why he needs to leave, and he busies himself with getting the DVD out of the player so he doesn’t stare at her face any more than he already has.

Olivia follows him to the door. “Thanks for coming by,” she says softly, leaning against the wall opposite him as he pulls on his coat. “This was nice.”

“Yeah,” he smiles. “It was.” _Almost like a date,_ he nearly adds, but he’s not drunk enough for that.

She steps forward to open the door at the same time he does, and for just a moment they’re so close he can feel the warmth of her body, the lightest touch of her breath on his face; her lovely eyes, startlingly sharp despite their shared drinks, don’t move from his, and in the end he’s the one to move first. He takes a jerky step backwards.

“Goodnight, 'Livia,” he says, and this time there’s no disguising the hoarseness in his voice.

“Goodnight, Rafa,” she echoes.

He’s pretty sure she’s standing in the doorway as he walks down the hall to the elevators, but he doesn’t let himself turn to check and see.

 

_iv._

The stars must have aligned, Olivia thinks, because there’s a lull in SVU’s caseload timed just as a long weekend falls, and she’s able to actually take all three days off to be with her son. On Saturday this mostly consists of running too long put-off errands together; on Sunday they spend the whole day at the Met. On Monday they sleep in, and in the afternoon Rafael comes to visit.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it to the museum with you guys yesterday,” he says to Olivia when she lets him in. “My mother wouldn’t let me get out of brunch with her.”

“You have to do what your mommy says,” Noah pipes up from his spot on the floor in the living room.

“He has sharp ears,” Rafael says to Olivia in an undertone, raising an eyebrow.

But Noah catches this too: “Only elves have sharp ears! Mine aren’t pointy, they’re round!”

Both adults laugh, and Rafael hangs up his coat before making his way with Olivia over to Noah. “Saying you have sharp ears just means you have good hearing,” he explains. “So how was the museum?”

Noah launches into a long story about getting lost in the Arms and Armor section while they tried to find their way to the Egyptian Art, and how after they found it they learned all about mummies, and he got to practice drawing hieroglyphs just like the ones inside the Pyramids.

Rafael makes the right exclamations at all the right moments, and when he asks to see Noah’s drawings the boy beams with delight, actually running to his room to fetch the rumpled papers. They’re covered in colorful, clumsy crayon drawings of birds, snakes, people, and shapes, all jumbled together.

“Wow, Noah,” Rafael says, “these are really good.”

Her son suddenly looks a little shy, so Olivia chimes in. “He spent a long time on those, didn’t you, Noah?”

“Yeah,” Noah says, ducking his head. “Do you like them?”

“They’re great, Noah,” Rafael encourages him. “Do you know what they mean?”

“No,” Noah admits. He looks embarrassed.

“Well, you’ll just have to go back to the Museum another time then, won’t you? Maybe I can join you next time and you can show me where we can learn about all of this.”

“That will be fun,” Noah says decisively, before his attention abruptly shifts elsewhere. “Rafa, can you read to me?” he asks, digging into his toybox to pull out a battered red book with a black bull on the cover.

“Sure, Noah,” Rafael smiles.

Olivia wonders if he’s noticed that Noah doesn’t call him “Uncle” anymore. She’d mentioned to Noah that he could just call him “Rafa, the way Mommy does,” and to her relief he’d made the switch without asking any questions. She wouldn’t have had a good reason to tell him, anyway. It’s just that Rafael doesn’t feel like a brother.

“You have to do voices,” Noah instructs as Rafael opens the book.

“I _always_ do voices,” Rafael replies with mock hurt, and Olivia laughs from her seat at the counter. “What?” he asks her teasingly.

“Nothing. You do very good voices,” she assures him.

“You do!” Noah agrees, and the grin on Rafael’s face takes her breath away.

She pulls out her phone as he begins, and snaps a picture of them: Rafael’s arm around Noah, who’s snuggled into him; both their heads bent over the book.

Her son is already too engrossed in the story to catch the quiet click of her phone camera, but Rafael glances up briefly, and smiles.

 

_v._

< _Had to put Noah to bed. Hope to see you soon!_ >

Rafael chews at his lower lip as he rereads Olivia’s text in the elevator up to her apartment. He was supposed to have dinner with the two of them, but had to stay late -- _again_ \-- for an unexpected meeting with McCoy and Stone. He’d called to let her know he’d be an hour or so late, but then the meeting had gone on even longer than expected. And gone badly.

He tries to shake it off as the elevator dings open, but he must have done a poor job because when Olivia opens the door and sees his face, her smile turns to concern.

“How did it go?” she asks, letting him in.

He grimaces and stalls for time by hanging up his coat, taking off his tie, and unbuttoning his collar. When he turns to face her, she’s got her head tilted to the side and her arms crossed across her pajama-clad chest.

“You look like you could use a drink,” she observes.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, actually.”

She drops her arms and steps closer. “That bad?”

Rafael rubs a hand over his face. “I don’t really want to talk about it. I just -- let’s talk about something else.”

After a brief hesitation, during which he prays she really will drop it, she speaks again.

“Okay.” She touches his shoulder briefly, guiding him to the couch.

Sinking down into it, and next to her, Rafael already begins to feel better. He leans his head back and shuts his eyes, inhaling deeply and savoring the scent of her lavender shampoo as he does. He can feel her eyes on him, but not any impatience. For a few full minutes they sit in blissfully relaxing silence, and he’s just starting to think he might actually fall asleep, until she speaks.

“Rafa,” she whispers.

He opens his eyes and turns his head towards her without lifting it from the couch.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” she promises, “but if there is anything I can do to help, you let me know.”

He smiles softly. “I will.”

“You know --” she begins, then stops herself.

Something in her face has shifted, just slightly, but enough to make him sit up on the couch and face her properly. For some reason he feels suddenly, completely awake, and he doesn’t miss it when her eyes flick from his eyes to his mouth and up again, nor when she leans forward.

“You know I’ll do whatever I can to help,” she says, so quietly that if their faces weren’t only inches apart he wouldn’t have heard her.

He watches her face for a moment, then nods slowly. “I know.” He lets out a choked little half-laugh, ducking his head before looking up at her again. “Olivia,” he whispers, and his heart is pounding. “Are you about to kiss me?”

She laughs too, and nods, and takes his hand. “Is that okay?” Her eyes are shining.

In answer, he leans forward and kisses her first. Warm and soft, almost but not quite chaste, and when he moves to pull away she lifts her hand to the back of his neck and keeps him close.

“You stole my move,” she whispers. He can feel the breath of her words on his lips.

“I’m not sorry,” he says. “Liv --”

She cuts him off with another kiss. And another, and another, until she’s straddling his lap with his face in her hands, his hand in her hair and his arm around her waist, and their kisses have moved far beyond the realm of chaste.

“Olivia,” he gasps when she pulls away for a moment to push the hair from her face. “ _God_ , Olivia.”

“Rafael,” she replies, and the hoarse, throaty way she says his name sends a thrill through his whole body and he can’t resist pulling her close again, can’t help but revel in the fact that he gets to see her like this, hear her like this, _touch_ her like this.

He has to tell her.

“Olivia,” he manages to say against her mouth, and she laughs again. “Liv,” he repeats, and she leans back but grinds down against his lap slightly as she does, forcing another gasp from him with a smirk on her face.

“Yes?” she asks mischievously.

He moves his hand from her hair to her face and brushes his thumb across her lips, watching how her eyelids flutter when he does so. When she opens her eyes again, there’s a hint of impatience in them.

“What?” she pushes.

He hesitates. Maybe it’s too soon; maybe it’s too much. But after months -- _years_ \-- of standing still, the momentum of what they’ve just done is finally propelling him forward, and he realizes that while it might be too much he’s going to risk it anyway. Because really, it’s not too soon, and he doesn’t want to wait until it’s too late.

“Olivia, I love you,” he lets out in a rush. “I’ve loved you for a long time now. You don’t -- you don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know.”

She leans forward and slowly, sweetly kisses the corner of his mouth. “I love you too, Rafa,” she murmurs, and his breath hitches when he hears the words. She rests a hand on his chest and with the other brushes the hair from his forehead. “I don’t know for how long, but I do love you.”

Rafael wants to weep. With relief, with joy, with sheer excess of overwhelming emotion. Instead, he buries his face in her hair and breathes deep, holds her tight. Then laughs again.

“Will you go out with me?” he asks, leaning back to give her a lopsided smile.

Olivia smirks. “What, so we can get to know each other? You’re my best friend, Rafa. You already know it all.”

“I don’t know what it’s like to take you out on a date,” Rafael argues. “What you’d wear, whether you’d prefer a restaurant or a movie, what kind of flowers you’d like me to bring --”

“You’re going to bring me flowers?”

He raises an eyebrow. “My mother raised me right.”

This time her laugh is loud and free. “Okay,” she replies after catching her breath. “Yes, you can take me out on a date.”

“Only one?” he teases.

“On as many as you like,” she replies, and kisses him. “But are you going to wait to the third one until you go to bed with me? Because that’s another thing you don’t know about.”

His breath catches in his throat. “No. No, I don’t think I could wait even if I wanted to.”

“ _Good_ ,” she breathes. “Come on.”

 

_+1._

The condominium apartment is bright and airy: high ceilings, large windows, pale walls; and richly dark wooden floors that lend depth to the space. The kitchen is state-of-the-art. The bedrooms are moderately sized but the master has generous closet space. The view isn’t particularly breathtaking, but that’s no dealbreaker given the rest of the features, including the fact that the building is well-maintained, well-managed, and only a few blocks from one of the best public grade schools in New York. And all within their budget.

“I think this is a yes,” Olivia says to Rafael when the realtor steps away to take a call.

“Don’t say it so loudly,” he hisses without tearing his eyes away from the walk-in closet. “You’ll make it harder to haggle for a better price.”

She rolls her eyes but her smile doesn’t fade, especially not when Noah comes charging into the master bedroom. “Mommy, Papá, come see my room!”

“It’s your room already, huh?” Olivia teases, taking Noah’s outstretched hand. She catches Rafael’s eye and, in a fit of good spirits, he takes her other hand and squeezes it, running his thumb briefly over her engagement ring.

She smiles at him as they let Noah lead them to his room, where the boy begins to describe exactly how he wants to decorate it, complete with a train track set he’d seen in a shop window a few weeks ago and hasn’t stopped fantasizing about since.

(It’s already wrapped in a box and tucked in the closet, awaiting his upcoming seventh birthday. Next to that box, unbeknownst to Olivia, is another one containing a large framing of Noah’s two certificates of adoption: the one that she had signed when he was a baby, and the one Rafael signed three weeks ago, two days after he proposed and the day before Noah -- to his astonishment and delight -- began to insist on calling him Papá. It’s one of Rafael’s wedding presents to Olivia.)

“Okay, sorry about that,” the realtor chirps, re-joining them. “Did you folks have any more questions about the place?”

They do, but only minor ones, and despite Rafael’s hopes to haggle, it’s clear the realtor knows the deal is as good as sealed already. And sure enough, by the end of the day the paperwork is done and the keys to the apartment are in their hands.

“Can we sleep here tonight?” Noah asks eagerly once the realtor heads out, leaving the three of them alone in their new home.

“Right on the floor?” Rafael asks.

Noah giggles. “Yeah!”

“I don’t think so, mijo,” he says, ruffling the boy’s hair, “but we’ll move everything over soon.”

“Okay,” Noah accepts, and then runs back to his room, babbling happily to himself about where everything will go.

Olivia leans into Rafael slightly, and he slips an arm around her waist. He goes to kiss her cheek but she turns her face and catches his lips with hers instead. She can feel him smiling.

“Two more months,” he says: they like to count down to the wedding now and then, out loud to each other.

“Two more months,” she repeats, and kisses him again.

They’re home.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically he is visiting Olivia’s apartment in the +1 too, but because he’s moving in and the apartment belongs to both of them I’m ruling it different enough to count. 
> 
> Fluff is so fucking hard, y'all. I had fun writing this but it also feels like it's missing something? Anyway, all the fics I have lined up involve plenty of conflict and angst and ACTUAL PLOT and SVU cases, so that will be easier lmao. In the meantime, let me know what you think of this one!


End file.
